Issue 16 April 2010
Featured Story
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Quakers and politics
For some, politics is a dirty business to be avoided at all costs. For such purists party politics is inevitably corrupt and immune to the influence of rational debate. Voting only encourages them! Whatever you do the government gets in. But the very debasement of politics can be an opportunity…
Top Stories
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Young Friends tackle conflict and the peace testimony
Conflict, violence and nonviolence were on the agenda last week for young Quakers from across Europe and the Middle East, who spent seven days exploring the issues in depth at a residential event in Northern Ireland. European and Middle Eastern Young Friends (EMEYF) brought together twenty Quakers aged 18-30s at…
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Campaigners celebrate UK action on vulture funds
In a dramatic last-minute decision before parliament was dissolved for the general election, the UK has become the first country to restrict ‘vulture funds’, companies that buy up the debts of poor countries and then sue for massive profits. The Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Bill was passed on 8 April… -
Sussex Quakers stick to outreach plan
Friends in Sussex have used an Outreach Development Day to ‘inspire and inform’ Quakers and allow them to explore ways of reaching out to the local community in future. They described the event, which drew around fifty people to Reigate Meeting House on 20 March, as ‘a great success’. It… -
MP accountability network launched
As Quaker Meetings and other faith groups prepare to host hustings in the run-up to the general election, Church Action on Poverty (CAP) has urged them to question politicians all year round and not just at election time. CAP has launched the MP Accountability Network, which is appealing to churches… -
A celebration of our work
It is time to celebrate our work. That’s the message coming from the organisers of Britain Yearly Meeting next month and each session of business will include a Friend answering the question: ‘Why am I a Quaker, how am I a Quaker?’ Chris Skidmore, co-clerk of Yearly Meeting Agenda Committee,…
All Articles
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What is a police state?
‘The entire population of the United Kingdom and their children and grandchildren face an unprecedented threat to their collective and individual freedoms, the nature of which is only now beginning to become fully apparent’. These are the words of Roger Iredale, in the pamphlet Seven Quakers and Civil Liberties. They… -
Solving the nuclear conundrum
Now here’s a sad conundrum – forty-six per cent of the UK population still think we should maintain our nuclear deterrent; thirty-seven per cent think we should extend it; and that in some cases we could contemplate first use. These percentages are steadily reducing but we are at a critical… -
Technology and remoteness
In my Area Meeting (West Scotland – 200 miles between extremities) even those of us in the centre who are able to travel to peripheral Meetings are reluctant, because it takes so much time, energy and money, and puts out so much carbon dioxide. For others it is simply impossible,… -
Letters – 16 April 2010
Role models Will young Friends be able, later in life, to say that they have been inspired by Friends working for peace, often at great cost to themselves? Becoming a member in the mid-1980s my list includes Nicholas Gillett, Joseph and Else Pickvance, Arthur and Ursula Windsor, Ted Dunn and… -
Quakers and politics
For some, politics is a dirty business to be avoided at all costs. For such purists party politics is inevitably corrupt and immune to the influence of rational debate. Voting only encourages them! Whatever you do the government gets in. But the very debasement of politics can be an opportunity… -
Moments from a Meeting
‘The Friends themselves are the colour and the movement’ -
Let’s dismantle Trident
I was present when Keith O’Brien, cardinal archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, spoke on ‘Trident, Viewed with the Eyes of a Twenty-first Century Faith’, as part of the 2010 series of Hexham Debates originated by local Friends. The Debates cover aspects of war, peace and democracy. Keith O’Brien’s talk… -
A visit from Gandhi
Many Friends will have seen the BBC1 Antiques Roadshow in early March and may have been interested in the piece about Gandhi. Gandhi visited Lancashire at the time of the Round Table Conference in 1931 in London regarding India’s independence, as a result of an invitation from a group of… -
Q-Eye – 16 April 2010
Were you there? We were reminded of those wonderful Quaker Work Camps this week when Philip and Margaret Baker asked us to check out Friends who helped them build a community centre in Fazakerley, Liverpool, in 1952. Imagine their surprise, on a trip to the area last month, that the…
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